Best Of

Smeakybpartial quote from talktv, but Labour have picked up on it. Pochin is surely right here, I mean the figures do back her up. Farage won’t condemn it, and he shouldn’t either

Nigel Farage needs to condemn this now, and urgently clarify whether Sarah Pochin’s views on race are welcome in his party.

https://x.com/labourpress/status/1982106185672314978?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

I'd be interested in an advertiser's/marketers view on this. I suspect there are some hard stats behind the diversity we see in adverts - the most valuable customers tend to be in their 20s/30s ; Gen Z/Millenials with their woke views on stuff like race and trans. Does that offset the unease it generates in boomers?

Stuart in London seems to be asking for white DEI hires... and his accidental description of Farage was quite memeable too.

I thought it was just that if you only have white people in your adverts you'll get called racist so everyone has non-white people in which results in the ridiculous statistics.

It's an odd thing for somebody to get worked up about and a 'tell' if they do.

A ‘tell’ that they aren’t easily gaslit

So you get worked up about too many non-white people in ads? Really?

No, not really. The absurdity makes me laugh or roll my eyes, but I wouldn’t say I was worked up about it.

That's the point, it's absurd rather than upsetting. You might wonder whom the advertisers think their targets are

As someone said upthread, it’s highly unlikely that youngsters watch much tv, and even less so the ads anymore anyway. My son, who is nearly 6, can’t get his head around the fact that we never used to be able to rewind live tv, or that we might miss a program if we weren’t in, and would never get the chance to see it again.

So, back on topic, what does Starmer do with Powell now? Bring her back into the Cabinet weeks after he sacked her for not being very good? Ignore her?

Not going to be easy with comments like this:
"We must give a stronger sense of our purpose, whose side we are on and of our Labour values and beliefs,' she said.

'People feel that this government is not being bold enough in delivering the kind of change we promised.'

And she thinks she is being supportive at this point!

Speaking truth to power is being supportive.

Speaking a load of cliches, OTOH, is pointless.

It is rather.

"Not being bold enough in delivering the kind of change we promised".

Que?

If I never hear the word CHANGE again it will be too soon for me.

Unless it's pertaining to socks.

Politicians don't seem to get that 'change' isn't for most the priority. Change is associated with the world in which Windows 10 is expensively transformed into Windows 11 and upgrades that make everything worse, and new time tables that don't run trains the times you want.

Thye priority for the great majority is steady incremental general improvement in things but even more than that running ordinary stuff really well.

The Democrats are really searching for an answer for Trump at the moment. I'm not quite sure who that is, but what I do know is it's not Kamala Harris.

I quite like Harris, and I think a lot of the criticism of her is rather overblown. She was, unquestionably, dealt a very bad hand and in 2024 she played it... broadly as well as she could have done, I think. But her big issue is her seeming inability to shift this incredibly tortured way of communicating. She looked at the start of the 2024 campaign like she was finally shaking it off, only to revert more and more to type as the election approached. She fired up Democrats, but it wasn't enough in an election where swing voters were feeling helpless and casting around for solutions - she couldn't speak to those people. I see nothing to suggest she's suddenly learned how to do so.

Pathetic turnout but another bad day for Starmer as Labour members back Burnham’s preferred candidate Lucy Powell over his preferred candidate Bridget Philippson

No evidence that Starmer preferred either of them. None of this makes a difference to Starmer's standing. In some ways things are looking up for him. Farage is looking sleazy and flakey and Kemi is beyond doubt a no-hoper.

So a perfect time for a Starmer reset which he needs and of all the leaders he's the one who holds the stage

How many resets does a Prime Minister need in a week?

Just when Starmer demonstrates his facile incompetence, Boris Johnson rocks up to the COVID Inquiry as a reminder that things could be even worse.

I expect the median voter would now bring back Boris as PM tomorrow. Heck, I expect the median voter would even bring back Rishi as PM tomorrow now

Starmer and Sunak are considered two cheeks of the same useless arse, and the median voter does not want a Johnson redux. You are wishcasting.

The median voter is now voting Reform

To an extent you have me there. But I would equally assume given the choice of Johnson or Brave Sir Nigel, Farage takes it by a country mile.

Caerphilly might question your Reform voting logic.

Caerphilly was fascinating. It does completely change the Reform narrative in my mind. Being the most popular party might turn out to be meaningless if you are also the most hated party. And Reform certainly sit in that strange spot in the political Venn Diagram right now.

Being the most loved and most hated worked for Mrs Thatcher.

Against a deeply unpopular Labour government in 1979, a hard left leader of the opposition in 1983 and an opposition divided between Labour and the SDP Alliance in 1983 and 1987.

Kinnock would probably have beaten Thatcher in 1992 though, only the more centrist Major got the Conservatives the win in 1992 having also scrapped Thatcher’s poll tax

Was Major perceived as centrist compared to Mrs Thatcher in 1992?

Checking, the last round of voting when he became leader was between Michael Heseltine, Douglas Hurd, and John Major.

Of those three was John Major not the "not wet" one on the Right, being iirc the Chief Secretary to the Treasury?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990_Conservative_Party_leadership_election

Polls in 1990 had both Major and Heseltine beating Kinnock but Thatcher trailing Kinnock.

Major was able to become PM therefore with the votes of Thatcher loyalists and MPs who wanted rid of Thatcher to save their seats but hated Heseltine and his uber Europhile views.

By 1995 though many of the Thatcherites had switched to Redwood when he challenged Major to be Conservative leader and the Lady was known to be sympathetic to the Vulcan (but really wanted Portillo as Thatcher's heir had he activated his phonelines and stood) while Major ironically had gained the backing of Heseltine's and Hurd's former backers to stop Redwood

Amazing to think that the euro-sceptics believed they could get anywhere under Spock. Ultimately, of course, they needed the carpet-bagger and trickster Boris to deliver their dreams (such as they turned out to be).

Indeed but as I said Portillo was really the Thatcherite Messiah until he lost his seat in 1997 and started going wobbly and liberal and then by 2001 many of the Thatcherite right switched to IDS, as indeed did the Lady herself once IDS faced Clarke in the final 2 and Portillo had been knocked out.

Boris of course let us not forget started off a One Nation Clarkeite, backing Ken Clarke for leader in 2001, then a Cameroon in 2005 then once his ambition took hold of him and he had Mayor of London as a platform to challenge to be PM he positioned himself as a 'Brexity Hezza' in his own words and backed Leave in 2016 and the rest is history....

Boris Johnson has always taken whatever position is in the best interest of Boris Johnson.

This applies in journalism, business, money and perhaps in other fields...

Pathetic turnout but another bad day for Starmer as Labour members back Burnham’s preferred candidate Lucy Powell over his preferred candidate Bridget Philippson

No evidence that Starmer preferred either of them. None of this makes a difference to Starmer's standing. In some ways things are looking up for him. Farage is looking sleazy and flakey and Kemi is beyond doubt a no-hoper.

So a perfect time for a Starmer reset which he needs and of all the leaders he's the one who holds the stage

How many resets does a Prime Minister need in a week?

Just when Starmer demonstrates his facile incompetence, Boris Johnson rocks up to the COVID Inquiry as a reminder that things could be even worse.

I expect the median voter would now bring back Boris as PM tomorrow. Heck, I expect the median voter would even bring back Rishi as PM tomorrow now

Not after his appearance at the Covid (Education) Inquiry earlier this week. Scruffy, disorganised and forgetful, and a dreadful blame-shifter.

So exactly as we always remember him.

I find it increasingly bizarre that so many on here return to the question of Brexit at every opportunity, even if the links require the most tortuous of reasoning. Anyone who persuades themselves that it is still Brexit that is driving Reform or their voters is deluding themselves. The country has moved on, Brexit is neither the land of milk and honey promised or the disaster predicted. We have so many real and profound problems to address, not only economic (although they are particularly acute) but also cultural and social.

I don't think that's true.

Brexit is a very long way from being everything, but it (and our still to be fully worked out relationship with Europe) does, to a greater or lesser extent, impact everything - trade; industry; defence; immigration; finance; medicine - and will continue to do so.

I find it bizarre to pretend otherwise.